She didn’t see the hay until her husband suddenly opened his arms and let her drop. Annabel released a surprised squawk that turned into an “oomph” as she landed. She sank down into it a bit and had to climb back out.
Ross chuckled, unbuckling and setting aside his sword as he watched her struggle to her knees in the pile. Annabel had just managed the feat when he then tugged at his plaid and sent it floating to the floor around his feet. Smiling at her expression and the way she stopped to stare, he then quickly pulled his shirt off over his head to stand naked before her in naught but his boots. And he was a sight to see. She would never have thought a man could be described as beautiful, and she would not have said that about Ross’s face, which was handsome, strong, rugged and manly. But while his body was strong and manly too, it was also breathtakingly beautiful to behold.
Ross let her look her fill for a moment in the dim light, and then held out a hand. “Come. If ye’ll stop playing in the hay, I’ll lay me plaid out on it to make it a more comfortable not-bed.”
Since she was presently being poked in several places by the hay, Annabel took his hand and crawled forward on her knees. But stopped when she found her face a mere inch from his manhood. It had been stirring as she’d stared at him, but now with her face so close that her breath was no doubt rippling across it, his manhood hardened and rose to its full glorious state.
For some reason that recalled her to their first time in the woods when he had pleasured her with his mouth, and Annabel suddenly leaned forward to lick it, giving it one long swipe as if it were her thumb and the fruit center of a pastry had squirted out over it. The action brought a hissing sound from Ross and she peered up to see that his head had gone back, his teeth clenched as if in pain. A glance down showed his hands clenched as well.
Recognizing the pose from when she’d touched him for the first time, Annabel suspected he liked that and did it again, this time ending by closing her mouth over the tip and sucking as she drew her mouth away, as she would if she were trying to get absolutely every last drop of fruit center from her thumb.
“Wife,” he growled and suddenly plucked her up under the arms to lift her to her feet. Meeting her gaze then, he warned, “Yer playing with fire.”
“Mayhap I like fire,” she said with a smile and then added more seriously, “Certainly I like the way ye make me burn.”
Eyes widening, Ross tugged her up against his chest and kissed her. Annabel immediately slipped her arms around his shoulders and kissed him eagerly back. Feeling his hardness pressing against her stomach through her skirts, she then shifted her lower body from one side to the other, using her body to caress that hardness.
His response to that was to use both hands to quickly drag her skirts up the back of her legs until he could clasp her bare bottom. Cupping her cheeks, he then lifted and pressed her more intimately against himself. Annabel moaned but more with frustration than anything: her gown was still between them. She was no more pleased, however, when he broke their kiss and set her back on her feet.
“I must make our not-bed,” he reminded her, stepping away and bending to collect his plaid from the ground. Annabel grimaced when she saw the bits of hay clinging to the material. As he shook it out, she glanced around in search of somewhere to place her gown that would not result in it ending up the same way as his plaid. Spotting two posts with a rail between them, she moved over to it and quickly undid her lacings and lifted the gown off over her head rather than drag it across the ground. She was laying it over the post when she felt hands at her waist. Annabel jumped in surprise and glanced over her shoulder, smiling wryly at her husband.
“You startled me,” she admitted with a crooked smile as he pulled her back against his chest. She peered down at his hands as they slid up to cup her breasts, fascinated by the sight of his tanned hands enclosing her creamy skin. When he caught each nipple between thumb and finger and rolled, then pinched them lightly, Annabel moaned. Her back arched, pushing her breasts into the caress, and her neck stretched as she twisted her head sideways against his chest.
When Ross bent to kiss her forehead, Annabel tipped her head back to offer him her lips. He accepted the invitation, claiming her mouth in a kiss that was almost violent. Annabel responded in kind, nipping at his lips with her teeth before he thrust his tongue into her mouth. She was aware when one of his hands slid from a breast to drop down, gliding over her stomach as it sought out places further south. Moaning, she pressed her bottom back into him and then shifted her stance a bit to allow him better access as his lovely fingers slid between her legs.
“Husband,” she gasped, breaking their kiss and clutching at his upper arms as his caresses made her legs go weak. He gave up caressing her other breast then, and wrapped that arm under her breasts to help hold her up as he drove her crazy. Annabel’s world tilted, all sensation narrowing to that point between her legs that his fingers were dancing over and she unthinkingly turned her head and bit into his arm to ground herself, easing her jaw when he grunted. She had just enough sense left in her poor passion-muddled head to feel guilty for unintentionally hurting him, and reached back with her hand, seeking to make up for it by distracting him.
Annabel found his manhood and closed her fingers eagerly around it to slide gently up and down. She stopped that though and squeezed when he suddenly thrust a finger into her. They both groaned then and Annabel felt his shaft jump in her hand.
In the next moment, Ross bent her forward. Annabel grabbed at the post in front of her with her free hand and gasped in surprise when he pulled his manhood free of her other hand and thrust it into her from behind. She was a good deal shorter than him, and his legs were on either side of hers, bent to lower him enough to do that. Annabel had the momentary thought that the position could not be comfortable for him, but then he withdrew and thrust back into her even as the hand still between her legs began caressing her again and she forgot the worry. Still, she wasn’t surprised when he suddenly stopped, withdrew, and scooped her up to carry her to his plaid in the hay.
He dropped to his knees with her once there, then laid her on his plaid and shifted over her. Annabel reached for him, but he caught her hands at once and pressed them down on either side of her head, holding them there as he bent to nip at her lips and then claim them. Annabel moaned into his mouth as she felt his manhood slide across her slick skin, she then spread her legs and arched and shifted in an effort to help him enter her. But it seems he didn’t want to enter her yet for he was enjoying tormenting her by rubbing his hardness against her again and again without actually joining with her.
Annabel suffered it for a time, enjoying the excitement he was continuing to build in her, but then frustration rose up. She wanted him inside of her, she wanted …
Twisting her mouth away from his, she gasped, “Dammit husband. Please!”
For some reason that made Ross chuckle, and then he released her wrists and rose up on his knees between her spread legs. Grasping her hips, he raised her bottom off the hay and thrust into her.
“Oh God, yes,” Annabel groaned with relief. He then simply held her there, joined with him with one hand at her hip while his other moved between them to caress the bud weeping for him. Annabel groaned again, her heels digging into the hay so that she could shift herself against his hard, still shaft, dancing to the tune his lovely fingers played on her flesh.
Panting with excitement and exertion, Annabel opened her eyes and found that he was watching her. Suddenly self-conscious, she stopped.
Ross removed himself and lowered her to the hay, then turned her onto her stomach and pressed down on her to kiss the side of her neck before murmuring, “Ye shouldn’t ha’e stopped. I liked watchin’ ye take yer pleasure on me.”
Annabel’s eyes widened as she realized that was exactly what she’d been doing, and then she gasped as he suddenly rose up off her, lifting her to her knees with him so that he could plunge into her from behind again. Using her hands to brace herself the b
est she could in the hay, she gasped and moaned as he drove into her over and over again. But Annabel wasn’t sure she liked this position as much since she couldn’t kiss or touch him like this, and then she stiffened and gasped out a breath when he reached around to touch her again.
In the next moment, they were both crying out in pleasure and collapsing onto the plaid-covered hay. Ross was still on top of her at first, but quickly shifted off and onto his side next to her. He then turned her onto her side as well and wrapped his arm around her waist, cuddling her so that her back was pressed tight to his chest.
She heard Ross’s breathing slow and even out and knew he’d fallen asleep. Content where she was, Annabel dozed off as well, but didn’t think she’d managed to fall into a proper sleep before a sound stirred her. Opening her eyes, she peered drowsily at the swath of sunlight stretching across the floor from the open barn door behind them. It was long and wide and had a shape in it, Annabel noted, frowning as she tried to sort out what the shadow in the middle of the sunlight was and why it was growing smaller. The answer came when the shape shifted and shrank toward the ground, almost disappearing into the shadow cast by her and Ross’s bodies. It all clicked then. The shadow in the light had been a figure approaching, and he was now kneeling behind them.
Annabel lay completely still, ears straining and eyes locked on the swath of light, and then she saw an oddly shaped, thinner shadow rise out of the darkness cast by their bodies. Even as she realized it was an arm with some sort of club in hand, she shrieked and sat up. The thud came as she did and she whirled on the plaid as the man from the previous attacks glanced up from clubbing her husband over the head.
Annabel’s eyes shot to Ross. She couldn’t see blood yet, but he was unmoving. Rage merging with her terror, she shrieked furiously and glanced wildly around for a weapon. What she spotted was Ross’s sword at the edge of the hay on her side. Scrambling to it, she grabbed up the heavy metal and pushed herself to her feet in one stumbling move, then whirled holding the sword out before her, arms shaking with the effort.
“Now, lass, ye don’t want to be doing that,” he said in a low rumble, casting Ross a wary glance as he straightened to stand behind his prone form.
“I did not wish to stab you in the bluebells, but I did,” she pointed out, and then added coldly, “Now you have harmed my husband and I do want to hurt you.”
“Now, now,” he cooed, easing sideways until he could step around Ross’s body to move toward her. “I only knocked him out. He’ll be fine. Lower yer weapon before ye hurt yerself.”
“Go to hell,” Annabel growled and swung at him. She didn’t know which amazed her more, that she’d cursed him to hell, which was really quite fitting and somewhere she had been warned repeatedly that she would go, or that she actually winged the man, catching the same arm she’d stabbed during their last encounter. She’d caught his lower arm previously, but this time she creased his upper arm with the blade, cutting a nice straight line across it before her momentum and the weight of the sword spun her around so she couldn’t see him anymore.
Cursing, she started to turn to face him again, and then stumbled forward as she took a blow to the back of the head. Lights flashed briefly behind her eyes, but she remained conscious, on her feet, and even managed to shift the sword out of the way in time to avoid slicing off her own leg.
A hand closed around hers on the sword before she had quite recovered. Annabel struggled briefly to keep her hold on it, but he was crushing her fingers into the metal and she finally let it go with a cry of pain and stumbled away toward the corner of the barn and the shadows offered there.
“There’s no sense in trying to run,” her attacker said behind her. “We’ve got yer horses. We’d just ride ye down.”
Annabel didn’t respond, she simply continued into the shadows, hands outstretched to avoid running into anything as it got darker and darker around her.
“And ye can’t hide either. I ken yer here, I’ll just find ye,” he pointed out.
Her hand bumped against and then closed over a piece of wood when it started to slide along what she thought must be a wall. At first she snatched at the wood to prevent it crashing to the ground and giving away her location, but as she felt the wide plank and judged the length and strength of it, she picked it up to use as a weapon.
“If ye make things too difficult we might harm yer husband,” the man warned now. “And ye wouldn’t want that, would ye?”
Annabel didn’t think, she simply raised the wooden plank over her head and charged at him, shrieking like a banshee. She must have been something to see—a naked woman, hair wild around her head and mouth open on a mad scream as she raced out of the darkness at him. The man didn’t even think to raise the sword until the last moment; he simply stood there gaping until she was almost upon him. Only as she started to swing the plank did he lift his weapon, but before he raised it halfway, she was slamming the wood into his head with all the strength she had.
His head swung on his neck, the skin on his face vibrating with the impact, and then his body seemed to follow his head’s turning and he stumbled around and away from her. Annabel waited for him to fall, but he didn’t, he took several stumbling steps to the open door of the barn and then sagged against the wooden frame briefly. Mouth tightening, Annabel started forward, prepared to give him another whack, but she’d only taken a couple of steps when he slid off the frame and fell forward, collapsing on his face in the dirt.
She hesitated, still considering another whack, but then glanced to Ross and hurried to his side instead.
“Husband?” Annabel said worriedly, looking him over with concern as she knelt at his side. She carefully felt his head until she found a bump and felt damp blood on her fingertips. His eyes didn’t flicker at her touch, not even when she slapped him lightly, “Husband, please wake up.”
She tried to rouse him for several minutes, and then glanced toward their attacker, stiffening when she didn’t see him lying where she’d left him. Her heart stilled briefly, and then she tightened her grip on the plank, and forced herself to her feet. Annabel took a step, but on the second one stubbed her toe on something. She glanced down blankly at Ross’s sword, realizing only then that the man had dropped it. After a hesitation, she bent to pick it up. It was heavy and awkward for her as a weapon, but she didn’t want to risk leaving it there for someone else to use, so she held the plank in one hand and dragged the sword with her as well as she moved cautiously to the door to peer out.
Annabel had expected to see the man either stumbling or dragging himself away from the barn, but he was nowhere to be seen and she suddenly recalled the man speaking in the plural, saying, “We’ve got yer horses. We’d just ride ye down.” And, “If ye make things too difficult we might harm yer husband.”
Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she peered toward the trees not far away. Annabel didn’t see anything, but suddenly felt as if she were being watched.
After a quick glance to see that, indeed their horses were gone, Annabel backed into the barn several feet, and then whirled and hurried back to Ross.
“Husband, please,” she hissed, dropping to her knees beside him and releasing her weapons to shake his shoulders. “You have to wake up. We must get out of here.”
Annabel knew even as she did it that he wasn’t going to rouse and lead her out of there. She was on her own, and had to save not only herself, but him. Somehow she had to drag her unconscious husband out of the barn and to safety. She didn’t dare leave him there.
Grinding her teeth, she glanced around. The afternoon was waning, the sun heading for the horizon to make way for night. Soon it would be dark and she had no intention of being there when that happened. Turning back to Ross, she tucked his sword under his arm where she hoped it would not be found and used against her should their attacker return. Annabel then stood to move to the two posts and board where her gown still hung. She grabbed it up, pausing to unhook it when it caught on a raised nail
. Once it was free, she donned it quickly, keeping her eyes locked on the open barn door.
Annabel felt a bit better once she was dressed, but she still watched the door nervously as she began to explore her surroundings. After several minutes of searching, she came up with a second long plank, some rope and little else of use. Annabel carried what she’d found to Ross and tried again to wake him.
When he didn’t stir, she glanced nervously toward the door, then sat down cross-legged and set to work tying one corner of the plaid by his head around the end of one plank. She then shifted down to the bottom of the plaid her husband lay on and tied that corner to the far end of the plank before shifting to the other side of the plaid to do the same with the second plank.
Annabel then picked up the rope and stood to consider her next move. She needed to fasten the rope to the top ends of the planks, but in such a way that it wouldn’t slide off. After a hesitation, she glanced toward the two posts with the rail across them and then hurried over to examine the nail that had caught on her gown. She tugged on it briefly, but when it wouldn’t budge, she rushed back to fetch Ross’s sword and used it to pry the nail free, nearly slicing her hand off in the process at one point.
Once Annabel got it loose, she searched for, found, and pulled out three more nails before taking her booty back to her husband. She used the sword hilt as a hammer to drive them into the planks where she needed them. She attached the rope to the planks, tying each end just past the nails at the top of either plank so that it wouldn’t slide off.
She then considered her makeshift pallet and her naked husband on it. After a moment, she bent to collect handfuls of hay and dropped it on his groin, hiding his manhood. Satisfied that she had done the best she could, she then reluctantly set her husband’s sword on the plaid with him and knelt by his head. Taking up the rope, she wrapped it around her shoulders and upper arms, and then straightened with a grunt.
Lynsay Sands Page 18